9999 Tears
by Anonagram
Summary: Chell and Wheatley have been living together for a number of years, Chell's business provides for her and her metal companion sufficiently enough, and life is simple. Until of course, their emotions begin to get in the mix. Handles will be flown from, tears will fall, even after such a long time, can Wheatley and Chell really live in harmony? Chelley story, with Core!Wheatley
1. Chapter 1

"You know, lady, to you this is just work," Wheatley spun forward in his casing, resting his gaze on his mute friend "-but to me, it's a little bit frightening, you, working with these mechanical behemoths."

Chell looked at her spherical companion from underneath the car she was working on, and raised her eyebrows.

"It's true! These things are like tanks, and you just- you just take some tools and they do whatever you want them to"

She shook her head a little, and went back to work.

Fixing cars wasn't something Chell had imagined herself doing for a living. In the years she'd been out of Aperture, She'd started fixing random appliances, scrapped machinery, Wheatley, and she kept pushing herself to fix bigger things. Along the line, she turned out to be a natural mechanic.

"Of course, my hacking skills have come in quite useful. Haven't they? If you don't mind me saying" he said smuggly, wiggiling his upper handle. There was a silence for a few seconds.

"Well, they've been useful every now and then..." He paused again

"Well... they've been useful once." He concluded, building on his conclusion with a thoughtful "Hmm."

Chell involuntarily displayed a miniscule smile.

Wheatley had been almost entirely useless, really, but telling him that would surely break his little steel heart.

Well, if he had a 'little steel heart'.

she just nodded at him, eyes fixed on the underside of her client's vehicle. Wheatley's lower shutter climbed upward, exhibiting a sort of 'smile'.

The day crawled on, as usual. Wheatley chattered while Chell silently worked, until the evening started to set in.

The sky darkened into the glow of twilight and as part of her normal routine, Chell picked up Wheatley and took him inside to rest for the following day.

'Wheatley's Automobile Repairs' was mildly successful, Chell made enough money to pay the bills and buy supplies for her garage but not much else. It wasn't a very big place either, it used to be a small abandoned warehouse and had been slowly converted into a home and workplace with the money she'd been putting aside from her repair jobs.

Just over half of the warehouse belonged to the garage, the rest was her living space. A tiny kitchen (which was shared with the dining  
area and lounge area), a small bathroom, a bedroom, and a storage room. A little smaller than a typical apartment really, but she liked it that way.

The dark haired woman closed the door seperating work from home, and slumped onto the couch letting Wheatley roll to the side as she sat down. Her skin was dark and grimey, as though she had attracted half the filth in the building onto her body. She looked at her arms and sneered in disgust at herself.

"Oh... you might want to go have a bath love." Wheatley chimed, predictably. "Working with these cars all day, I tell ya, can't be good for your skin." he shook his head solemnly with his shutters closed, as though he were scolding her.

Chell, fighting that little urge to just sit for a while, rose from the sofa and wandered into the bathroom.

"See you in a bit, love"

She mashed with the shower buttons until one of them made the water come on. She really had to fix this shower when she had the time. Wheatley kept on twittering in the other room. Now and then she could hear him, even over the running water.

She had thought about how plainly useless Wheatley almost was. The keyword, of course, being 'almost'. Chell had summarised that what Wheatley lacked in competence, he strongly supplied in companionship. She said a silent "thankyou" everyday that she had a close friend to rely on, somebody from her own twisted world. Somebody who knew what she had gone through to get here.

She came out of her thoughts and found herself watching a trail of dirt wash away down the drain of the bath.

Her self-employment was an ambitious step considering she'd never actually worked in a real job before, but when she got out of the labs, she decided that she wouldn't take orders from anybody again. She finally had her own life, and she wasn't going to let some bigger man put her on a time table, with set lunch breaks, and a handfull of assignments she couldn't care less about. The white office walls, the voice over the intercom, inching her way up the ladder of success for some unseen, distant reward...

No, it would be too much like that place. The place she had spent her whole life trying to get away from.

Chell shut off the water, pressing another random sequence of buttons to do so, and started to get ready for bed.

"- what was with that chap's beard, anyway? It was like a giant hairy... bear, a big bear just GNAWING his face off. Some of these clients are just absolutely mental," Chell crept back into the largest room, the one known as the kitchen-lounge-dining room to her, wearing a slightly oversized dressing gown and a towel around her head.

She'd never let Wheatley on to the fact that she couldn't hear him in the shower, so he had just been rambling on.

"-And what about that really tiny lady? Is she even really allowed to drive? Honestly, that's got to be some sort of crime. I'm not trying to be, not tryin' to be nasty or anything, but you should probably put aside equality for safety sometimes, right?" He stared at her for a reply, as usual, Chell just nodded while the kettle she had just put on started to rumble. Peculiarly, Wheatley had stopped talking after Chell's wordless reply. She waited for him to chirp up again for a few moments before turning to look at him.

He just stared back at her, with a strangely neutral expression.

He suddenly twitched (she'd never found out how to fix that) and blinked, refocusing.

"I'm sorry I- I just, seem to have completely lost my train of thought..." he said quietly.

She looked at him with slight concern, but quickly shrugged it off and poured the kettle into a cup of powdered  
hot chocolate.

Chell sat back down on the couch, sighing, one hand around the mug's handle, the other in her hair. This type of work wasn't mentally tiring, it was mostly physical. But since she was used to sleepless nights she welcomed the feeling of exhaustion.

she turned her eyes to Wheatley again. The moronic core's optic was no longer visible, his two shutters had met in the middle of his circular face. Power-saving.

She sighed again, bringing the mug of warm, milky chocolate to her mouth. She had felt lonely often, when she was back in there. Lonely to the point where a weighty cube covered in hearts was considered a dear friend.

Life on the surface was different. Enough people to keep you sane, but not a single one who she had wanted to really trust.

This was a different kind of loneliness anyway, it wasn't the sort that just any friend could take away. Not even Wheatley.


	2. Chapter 2

Beep beep beep, beep beep beep, beep beep beep, click.

Chell rubbed her eyes after pressing the _alarm off_ button on her alarm clock. She sat up in bed for a few minutes, the world  
slowly coming back to her, along with which day it was, today's tasks, what she had done yesterday...

"Morning love!" Wheatley called from the lounge area. She winced slightly at his voice, a dull thudding had started inside her head. She  
put her fingers to her temples and shut her eyes tightly before forcing herself up.

After a little while, she came into the large room where Wheatley 'slept'. "'Ello!" he chirped, his usual 'smile' on his face, or perhaps  
more of a big cheeky grin. Chell gave him an evil glare and made her way over to the part of the room which barely classed as a kitchen.

Wheatley's lower shutter dropped, his handles grew further apart from each other, _offended_

"Was just- was just wondering if you... I was just saying 'hello'" he muttered, quite audibly.

Chell turned around and pointed at him, giving him a stern look.

"I, uh... I don't know what that... is" he tilted himself to the side, emulating confusion. "Ohhh" suddenly, his voice sounded synonymous with the  
sound a historian makes when he's just discovered a lost artifcat explaining the disappearance of the Mayans. "This isn't that human  
female thing is it?" he shuddered "actually, you know what, it probably is, and if it is, I- I don't really want to know." Chell scowled  
and shook her head. "Well, what are you so upset about mate?" He rolled his optic upwards, staring at the ceiling.  
"We uh... we are mates, aren't we? I mean, not- not in the animalistic sense... of course, but rather the, er, buddy-buddy, pal... sense." He chuckled a little.  
Chell only sighed. She'd been doing that a lot recently.

"You know, you can tell me anything, lady." His voice sounded sincere, and soothing this time.

Returning from the kitchen with a mug of coffee (a mug of coffee which looked suspiciously like the mug of chocolate from last night, which  
she _hadn't_ washed). She sat beside her friend, as she normally did almost every day. The cheery ball rubbed his lower handle  
against her side, smiling up at her. The closest he could get to patting her on the back.

Chell looked over at the calender, displayed on her companion now-turned-coffe-table cube. Today was Saturday.  
She only had one car in the garage this week, and the owner expected it to be ready by Tuesday._ okay_ she thought to herself,  
_today, I can have a break._

She laid her head back against the top of the couch, closing her eyes. The warmth of the coffe mug against her hands was calming. She brought  
the whole mug up against her head, the faint headache still there in the background.  
Wheatley was in the background now, too. He was going on about trust and friendship, he mentioned something about their time in Aperture...  
For today, she just didn't want to listen. She shut him out of her mind.

She knew exactly what she needed right now, at least, she knew what she really _wanted_ right now. She kept drifting into thoughts of embrace, being encompassed in the arms of... someone. A lover, not a friend.

But then her mind would return to that one small problem.

_Who_?

Not a single person she met in this town had caught her interest, the people in general were pleasent, yet reserved. Their business was their own  
and nobody seemed to have time to chat.

And let's face it, Chell wasn't one to strike up a conversation.

When she thought a little bit too hard in combination with being half asleep, she sometimes came to think of Wheatley...  
The sphere was her best, and only friend. They'd been through so much together, most of their experiences nobody else on the planet  
could understand.

She snapped out of her thought before she could progress on it, she made herself remember how badly Wheatley had treated her while she  
was in the facility

Realising that Wheatley was quiet, she turned to face him. He stopped rubbing her side a while ago, but he was still looking up at her. They sat in silence for a few minutes, until Wheatley spoke again.

"Isn't there _anything_ I can do to make you feel better?" she sat and pondered for a moment, ultimately shaking her  
head at him. His upper handle lowered, and a genuine look of sadness crossed his face. "I'm really really really-really worried about you lady," he started again "you should be out there mingling with all the other humans, not cooped up here, with, well, me... in your free time."

He went over what he just said to himself, then added "Not that I... dislike your company, but... last time I checked humans work  
best, mentally, when they're with... more humans. Stops them all turning into nutcases." Again, he thought about what he'd said.

"N-Not that I'm insinuating that you've gone mad-" Chell put her index finger against his face, for once he understood perfectly.

For some time, they sat together.

She didn't need anybody's help. She'd made it this far.

Chell looked over at the core again.

"Soooooooo," She rolled her eyes "What's on the menu today? Not, uh. Not food. Can't eat it. That would be a bit, er weird. Me. Asking  
for food, that is. I mean, what're you up to? Because you don't seem in a hurry to work..."

Chell looked at him, smiled, and shook her head slowly

"Oh, taking a day off then? You deserve it. Of course, that leaves the unanswered question of... what's the plan  
for your day off?"

She shrugged, and finished her coffee.

Dying to talk, Wheatley fidgeted on the couch, as much as a sphere with no limbs _could_ fidget.

"I was thinking, I haven't seen outside for quite a while... And, neither have you, let's face it. So, perhaps, it'd  
be a nice change of scenery... to go out and... enjoy the outside a bit." he nodded "that'd be great, wouldn't it?" he said  
in a cheery voice.

A gentle pitter-patter sound had been drumming on the warehouse's metal roof since Chell had woken up. Today was probably not the best  
of days to go out for a stroll.

"C'mon love, I'm trying to think of ideas here and you're just giving me the silent treatment. A_s usual_" Wheatley complained,  
rolling the optic in his frontal plate.

The 'mute lunatic' sighed, and in an unusual turn of events she looked at him and spoke, "Fine." She sighed.

Chell rolled up one of the two garage doors a little, and crawled underneath it. Although it was raining lightly and clouds  
covered the sky, the light of the day made her squint as she came out of dark garage. The garage really was in the middle of nowhere, but so was the town that she lived in.

Adjacent to her garage was a very old barn which looked partially burnt down, and an old road leading into the main part of the town. After all of the fighting going on during her time in Aperture, society had been slowly rebuilding itself over the course of 9999999... It seemed as though the world contained less people now, the amount of abandoned buildings was staggering to say the least. Even her town, which was consideribly busier than other developing communities, was full of ruined stores and houses.

Now crouching outside her warehouse, she pulled Wheatley out from the garage and slid the door shut again.

"Oh-oh, I uh, I didn't realise it was raining, did you? Did you know?" His optical aperture had contracted around his  
blue optic, making his 'pupil' into a spec of light. An expression that made him look distressed. His 'eye' staring up at the clouds.

"Sorry, rain makes me a bit nervous... it isn't going to chuck it down later is it? Because that would be... slightly more serious. For  
me, of course." Suddenly he changed his tone from concerned to determined. "You know what? It doesn't matter. It's just a bit of water. I've got this protective casing that should stop it getting anywhere... vital."

It was barely raining at all when the uncanny duo left their home, only spitting lightly, but it seemed as though heavier rain  
later in the day was inevitable.

Grasping Wheatley's upper handle in her right hand and carrying a plastic bag of food in the other, Chell made her way through the overgrown field  
of long grass beside her beloved garage.

Water droplets littered the field of grass blades and clung to her as she walked through the dense greenery, as she walked a gentle breeze  
passed through her hair in waves, and though the sun was not visible in the sky, the grey clouds above insulated the heat of the summer afternoon.

"Huh." Wheatley uttered "It's actually quite nice out here isn't it? Even with the rain." Chell nodded. It's true, the day was ideal. For now of course.  
The smell of the wet foliage around her was liberating, unlike the musty smell of cars and dust she had grown accustomed to. And the slight  
wind on her face was one of her many reminders that she was still free.


	3. Chapter 3

Chell carried on through the light rain, trudging along through the weeds and grass while Wheatley prattled on idly. She wasn't going anywhere in particular, she heard that there was a forest in the area. Trees, that would be a fanciful sight.

Chell stopped in the middle of the field, "Oh, stopping here then? Are-are you sure? This- this isn't a very good place to stop. I'm just gonna be honest with you, there are probably hundreds more places you could stop aaaand they'd each be better than here. Unless you like grass blades in your butties-"

Scouting for any sign of the forest, Chell spied a single tree on the horison. A grey bushy shadow against the white sky.

She lifted Wheatley up to her chest, pointing him at the tree in the distance and tapped his hull.

"Ah. Alright, that's nice, can't remember the last time I saw a tree. Thanks love, definitely better than long grass, I can't see a thing when you're walking through it, by the way, I think I already mentioned that."

Chell rolled her eyes and pointed at the tree, then lifted her lunch to his optic.

"OH! A picnic? I dunno if you recall," he chuckled "but-but I can't eat."

Ignoring him, the selective mute continued her trek through the untameable grass. The tree was not as far away as it appeared, and the grass surrounding it was fortunately shorter than the monsterous blades she fought through to get there.

She looked up at the grand tree, a gnarled, grey oak covered in lichen. Its roots were huge and uneven, popping out of the ground in places and twisting like snakes.

Placing her spherical companion in a crook at the base of the tree, Chell promptly went to lie down, spreading her fingers in the grass and daisies.

She sighed, staring up at the dark clouds.

She was greeted by them with a sudden lashing of rainwater.

Great. Now it was really raining.

"N-n-n-n-n-n-n-nooh dear." As strange as it seemed, Wheatley sounded more disappointed than panicked by the heavy rain. His tone soon changed to that of the expected response.

"Pleasepleaseplease, remember to pick me up... This rain is the last thing I need, dead serious," he suggested, attempting to keep calm, as Chell arose after her brief moment of calm.

hoisting him up, and taking a bagel from the plastic bag, Chell started powerwalking back into the field, and what she hoped was the general direction of home.

She crammed as much of the ringed sandwhich into her mouth as she could without choking, dropped it, and then began to sprint through the downpour of water.

"Gah! Please! Whatever you do! DO NOT DROP ME." Wheatley commanded, everything in his field of view bouncing wildly in a mess of green and white.

Reaching the garage, the lady rolled Wheatley under the slide-up metal door and scurried underneath it with him, panting madly as she shut out the noise of the rain with the door.

"Okay, I admit, going out in the rain, probably not such a good idea after all." Chell shot the ball with a glance that could kill a whale. He laughed nervously in response.

"So, up for a game of Monopoly?"

* * *

The sound of the rain outside echoed through the warehouse all night, and the telltale rumbling of thunder surprised the pair every now and then.

Chell and Wheatley had situated themselves on the rough, cheap carpet of the living area floor along with an assortment of towels. The ex-test subject, now garbed in cotton pajamas, rubbed her hair vigorously with a light pink (mostly) dry towel.

"Right, adventure in the rain, remind me to not do that again, or rather, not let you do that with me again." His frontal plate glided around his hull for a second, then spun back to it's original fixture "to be fair, coulda been a lot worse, I coulda shorted out, or you might 'ave tripped in the mud,"

She smiled at him, discarding the now soaking towel on the floor and picking up a dry one. She held out a flat palm and pushed it down through the air, motioning for Wheatley to sit still.

Chell ran the towel over his shell, wiping away the glossy layer of water from his white exterior. He gasped, then began to chuckle quietly, causing her to stop.

"Sorry, y-you don't have to stop, it just feels a bit," He looked right up at the ceiling "I dunno, just weird I suppose, but nice, continue please." The dark haired woman shrugged and brought the towel back to his front plate, carefully drying the precipitation covering him.

He seemed wildly happy, displaying a face which could only be translated as beaming smile.

"Okay, if going out in the rain means this afterwards, I think... yeah, I think that's a fair trade" Chell cocked an eyebrow at him, confused as to what was so wonderful about being dried.

"I don't know how much you know about cores, but our plates do have some feeling in them," She remembered, back in Aperture when her little friend hit the ground with a clunk after she failed to catch him. "Ow" he had uttered. "...And that sort of... gentle pressure, is really really-" She massaged the area above his optic and smirked at him, and suddenly, as though a bone had been thrown into a hyena family's den, they both started giggling.

They stopped as suddenly as they had started, the metal ball gave her a more serious look- something he rarely showed.

"Alright, c'mon, I think you missed a spot." He looked at her expectantly, but she put her hands on her hips and only waved the towel at him. "...Please?" He gave her his trademark smile, and widened his optic as much as he could without breaking the aperture.

She smiled, and went to oblige him, drying his handles now rather than his outer frame.

"We don't really do things like this very often, do we?" Chell quietly waited for him to continue making his point, raising her eyebrows at him, "Okay, ummm. How to explain... most of our activities are one-sided, you know, I natter your ear off and you nod or something. That's the way it usually goes. Unless it's Monopoly." She laughed silently, and put the towel down. "I, personally, wouldn't half mind doing more stuff together. If you refuse to socialise with other humans, the least I could do- As an ex human carer," He stopped for a moment to wiggle his upper handle up and down to emphasise his past job "-is do some human social activities with you."

Chell looked at him with a half smile, "maybe." she responded.

He _had_ changed a little since she met him in Aperture. She supposed that being ejected from a soulless, psychopathic mainframe had something to do with it. Things like that stick with you, even if your brain is a circuit board. Experiences and mistakes can cause a person to reform even slightly. It seemed to have affected her, too. Forgiving him for his giant mistake was one of the hardest things she had ever done, but it also made it a lot easier to forgive him for all the little mistakes he'd made as well, they had forged a strong bond, and for the first time ever she could truly call him a friend.

Or was he really just a friend? Honestly, she thought, there wasn't really a name for the link they had formed other than trust. But what had really caused her to trust him after he made such a fatal flaw, after he hurt her so badly? Maybe it was because of his less threatening nature, being an immobile sphere and all, but since they left Aperture there was one thing she noticed about her round friend that she hadn't before...

He was sort of cute.

Moments like these, drying him after a rainy day, or catching him spotting a butterfly and yelling "BIRD! BIRD!" in panic, made her heart swell and an unwelcome smile creep onto her face.

The alloy orb gazed up at her face, blue light illuminating from his centre, his entire being twitching randomly now and then.

She sighed.

_What on Earth is happening to me?_


	4. Chapter 4

The smell of coffee filled the kitchen once again on the Sunday morning. Chell was up ten minutes earlier than usual today, and Wheatley was still in power-saving mode on the couch.

Putting on her work overall, she tiptoed to the door and into the garage. The old, battered Ford Mondeo was sitting there, waiting to be fixed. She put on her gloves and went ot pick up her toolbox when...

"Lady? Hey I think your alarm didn't go off!" she heard Wheatley shouting from the other room, she shook her head as she listened to the poor AI trying to wake her up.

"It's time to get u~up!" He called like a mother trying to get her child up for school. Feeling that it would be cruel to leave him at the assumption that she was asleep, she peeped her head around the door to the lounge area.

"OH! You're up already? Why didn't you say something? Or wake me up?" quickly forgetting her offense, he smiled at her. "I was thinking of some stuff we could do, last night, before going into sleep mode," She walked over to him and lifted him up, then went back into the garage.

"Got a few ideas, all surprises for when you finish this job though." He waggled his handlebars excitedly. "You'd better get on with it then so you can find out what they are!" He motioned towards the vehicle. Chell wasn't so sure that Wheatley's surprises would turn out to be anything overly exciting. The last time he had a surprise for her, it turned out to be a murder attempt.

This new surprise would definitely be better than that, however, so she tried to look at it as a good thing.

She already knew what was wrong with the car, and how to fix it, leaving her mind free to process other thoughts while doing work. She hadn't really progressed on her opinion about having feelings for a machine the night before, but now it was all she could think about.

First came disbelief. She didn't like Wheatley in that way. He constantly blathered, his idiocy and ignorance made him intolerable at times, he was alright as a _friend_, but she couldn't ever look past those issues and have him as more than that.

Second came the silliness of it all. Having feelings for Wheatley was, in theory, just about as plausable as being romantically attatched to a dishwasher. She'd be_ insane_ to like him.

Lastly was the embarassment. Gossip got around in this community, and although she didn't like it, people did know about her and her curious companion. Unless she was to shut herself up with him in the warehouse for the rest of her life, she couldn't have a relationship with Wheatley without getting unwanted attention, especially the way Wheatley talked to the clients.

Chell finished her repairs, and went to start the car to test her workmanship. It seemed to be running fine... but she noticed a few small problems she hadn't before... so she continued working.

Of course, on the other hand, Wheatley was pretty much the only choice she had if she wanted a relationship, unless she wanted to go out with _Tony the fat, bald, bearded truck driver._

Wheatley was also quite thoughtful from time to time, he had a genuine interest in making her feel comfortable, although that was probably because he felt as though he had to make up for his past actions in Aperture.

There was one thing he had- he could make her laugh...

Wheatley was silent, but was still smiling to himself, his optic looking to his left. No doubt he was thinking about how he was going to surprise Chell. She laughed inwardly. That's

Maybe she _was_ insane... but maybe she didn't care.

"Are you done then?" Wheatley called from his perch on top of a filing cabinet by the wall. Chell put a thumb up at him then got in the car, she was about to leave in it for a test run, when she caught her blue opticaled friend sitting patiently out of the window of the car.

_We don't really do things like this very often, do we?_

She kept her gaze on Wheatley, who was now a little self-concious, trying to see himself- his optic flying around. "Is something wrong?" He shouted "I'm not on fire am I? No, 'course not I would have noticed" he chuckled nervously "why are you looking at me like that?"

Chell got out of the car and reached up to Wheatley, pulling him down from his post. "Wh-what's going on?" he said, with a little laugh, "I hope you don't expect me to drive, don't think I'd be very good at driving, what with my lack of arms... and feet... and accurate depth perception..."

She climbed into the car and sat the confused sphere down on the passenger's seat, feeding the seat belt through his handles to keep him from rolling around.

"Oh, are we going? And you're taking me with you? This is gonna be brilliant, never rode in car before, which is sort of funny when you think about it since you're a caaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" Chell pressed all of her weight onto the acceleration pedal, and the car screeched as it took off.

She swerved out of the garage and took the vehicle right into the field across the road, flattening the hidiously overgrown grass behind it as it went.

"WOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" She turned right as much as she could, turning in a circle at a remarkable speed. The whole world outside the car spun around in a spiral of chaos.

Wheatley's words had turned into a incomprehendable river of panic... or excitement. She couldn't tell while she tried to concentrate on not losing control of the vehicle. Chell took the small vehicle all over the field, leaving behind figures of 8, lots of circles, and generally a huge mess in the grass.

Drifting across the green blades, she started driving at full speed right at the garage. "You MAD woman! You're gonna get us killed! NONONONONOOOOOO!" Wheatley managed to get out amidst the gibberish.

The tiny Ford Mondeo screamed as though it were in agony as she slammed on the brakes, stopping inches away from the garage wall. Then, as though nothing had happened, she drove the car into the old warehouse and pulled the key out of the ignition.

She sat in the car, hands still attached to the wheel, and looked over to Wheatley. The mechanical orb's optic was still spinning in confusion. He shook his casing then spoke.

"That-" he paused, his tiny blue pupil going from left to right, like he was trying to find words to describe what he had just experienced. Instead, he just gawked up at the mad mute. She couldn't help it, Chell burst out laughing.

"Man alive." he uttered, chuckling a little himself. "Don't do that again." she shook her head, still giggling.

Back inside the house, Wheatley had been placed on the small dining table in the kitchen area. He still seemed dizzied by Chell's crazy joyriding.

"Even though it was absolutely mental, and not to mention extremely dangerous, I found it strangely enjoyable!" Wheatley chattered as Chell prepared herself some spaghetti on the electric stove.

"it's stupid, but being in a life-or-death situation like that can be really-" Chell slopped the spaghetti into a bowl and walked over to where Wheatley sat at the table.

She sat right by him, uncomfortably close to his optic, and stared at him smiling. He looked around the room and stared back, awkwardly silent. Suddenly his handlebars both extended away from his centre like something had shocked him.

"I forgot about the surprise!" he groaned, his upper optic shutter coming down, and his blue pupil turning away from her gaze in shame. She giggled a little

"Oh sure, laugh at little old Wheatley 'little moron must be going senile, forgot about such a wonderful surprise for his only friend'" he muttered angrily, speaking in a higher pitch when talking in third person, trying to simulate her voice.

Her face softened, her smile dwindling away and her eyebrows lowering in sadness, and yet her heart was pumping at a scary rate, like a butterfly in her chest. Her poor little Wheatley was still gazing at the floor with a disgruntled expression fixed on his face, and horribly quiet. She wanted to tell him, confess her feelings for him, but her brain and her heart were currently at war.

_Now isn't the best time. Try later, when he's not in such a bad mood!_ her mind said, _no! If you tell him now it'll cheer him up!_ _You don't have to wait!_ She furrowed her brow and opened her mouth to speak.

"I have something to tell you," she began. He didn't look at her, he was still scolding himself. Her throat was swelling up, she was hanging on the edge of her voice trying desperately to force her words out, but it just wasn't happening. Chell, you stood up to two rampaging artificial intelligences who were bombarding you with neurotoxin and insults, you can do this.

"I think I love you" she said quietly, almost hoping that he didn't hear her so she could save her pride.

Five minutes, they sat in silence. It felt like an eternity longer.

She could feel herself on the brink of tears. This wasn't what she had expected to happen at all. She hadn't realised just how long she actually had feelings for the ball, longer than she had been actively concious of them, her mind reeled over all of the things he had done to make her laugh and the times they had been through together. She had _always_ loved him, and boy was he drawing it out of her.

The white and blue ball hadn't budged or shown her any sign of comprehending what she had told him. Perhaps he really _hadn't _heard her?

"I lo-"

"I heard you." He said flatly, uncharacteristically so.

"Why? Why did it have to be me? I'm not even _human_, or did your brain damage make you forget?" his voice was starting to rise, he felt a rant raging on inside him.

"Of all the objects in the world, all the people who come into our garage,_ why _me? Do you think that _I_ love you? Well that's not likely is it? I'm not even sure if I can _feel_ love! And look what you've done you've gone and made this awkward for both of us."

She couldn't hold it anymore, she got up. Her arms shaking, her legs trembling, her vision blurring, head pounding-

"The nerve of it, you're my _only_ friend, woman, couldn't you have picked somebody who you didn't risk your friendship with? And you call _me_ a moron!"

the tears exploded from her and flowed out like a fountain, she ran into her bedroom and slammed the door behind her.

She felt the glossy finish of the wooden door against her fingertips, she was facing away from it and staring at her unmade bed littered with pajamas and towels.

Her sight melted into an unrecognisable colour. She sank down and put her head in her hands crying silently into them.


	5. Chapter 5

_His voice cracked a little bit as he talked, but he couldn't cry, no matter how hard he tried. "I'm sorry, I'm truly, sincerely sorry. I'm sorry that I was bossy, and monstrous, could you ever forgive me? Can we be friends again?" She stared at him coldly, clutching him with renewed vigor like a sparrow trying to pierce the shell of a snail._

_She couldn't ever forgive him. He abused her, exploited her for his own gain, and most importantly he tried to kill her... but she just couldn't ignore that strange something that tugged at her inside when she looked him right in the eye. He had lost control, he wasn't himself when he was in there, and now the realisation of it all had broken him. It took all her strength and pride, but..._

_"I forgive you..." she whispered._

_He gawked at her in shock, her voice was strange to him, familiar and yet unfamiliar at the same time. Alien and homely. Yet the only thing more bizarre than her voice was what it was giving to him._

_Forgiveness._

Hours had passed by, Chell didn't even know what time it was, but she was hungry, tired, and heartbroken.

The area around her eyes felt cooler than the rest of her face, most likely due to the stream of tears she had cried. She rubbed her eyes and slithered into bed, not bothering to change clothes or even get under the covers. Despite how tired she was, sleep didn't come easily. She lay there, staring at the ceiling, unable to stop thinking though she wanted nothing but to feel numb.

What was she thinking? Wheatley was right. It was foolish of her to let her feelings develop for a _machine_, much less her best friend. It wouldn't have ever worked out...he didn't even know her _name_...

She had simultaniously lost her only companion and her self respect.

Although his cruel rejection had left her utterly shattered, her feelings were still strong for him. Years of affection burried beneath a mountain of stress and work had become a volcano, and like a volcano it destroyed everything in it's path when it errupted.

She couldn't help but think that his outburst was very unlike him, like he was being controlled or manipulated to become angry at her. But deep down she knew that it wasn't true. She supposed that even Wheatley had a line that shouldn't be crossed.

What was going through Wheatley's mind right now was an enigma in itself. She wondered how long he'd be angry at her, could they ever really be friends again? He didn't appear to think so.

Eventually, Chell drifted off into a dreamless sleep, her face wet with tears and her head aching from staring at the lightbulb for so long.

Beep beep beep. Beep beep beep. Beep beep b_- __**CRASH**_.

She launched the alarm clock across the room, it cracked open against the wall as it collided with the vertical mass of plaster.

Wheatley was silent.

She didn't want to face him. Not now.

But she was hungry...

But she didn't feel like eating, either...

_Get your act together Chell. You don't need him, you never did. Go out there and show him you don't care_ she lied to herself.

The tenacious AI destroyer forced herself out of bed and looked at the door miserably. Her heart pounding, she opened it.

Wheatley was on the floor, and in power-saving mode. How he managed to get on the floor, she didn't know. She pitied him for it.

Walking around him, she poured out some breakfast cereal and started walking back into her bedroom, trying not the look at the core. Trying to forget that he existed.

Centimetres away from the door frame, she stopped and turned around slowly. Her Gaze found the helpless yet hurtful robot and she began to wonder what she was going to do with him now.

Picking him up, and pleading in her mind that he wouldn't wake up, she set him down gentley in the storage room, on top of a couple of cardboard boxes. New droplets of salty tears formed in the corners of her eyes. She swallowed them back.

She wasn't trying to be cruel, she just wanted to be able to walk around the house without crying.

She closed the door, concealing the sleeping orb in the dark and narrow room. Like locking him in a coffin.

Threading her fingers through her hair and letting out a heavy, pent up sigh, she took her cereal into the kitchen and ate in woeful, empty silence.

Noon rolled around, Chell was sitting on the couch reading some old newspaper from way back when she used to receive them.

"GAAAAAH!"

She jumped at the sound, it was the sort of sound somebody would make if they woke up trapped in a black, claustrophobia-inducing room...

She walked up to the storage room door, hands on her hips, and waited for Wheatley to start talking.

"Wh-What. Where am I? What time is it? Ahh I can't see flippin... anything. 'Ang on. ARRGGHH!" there was a little click "Oh, there we go. Light... Aaand I'm in the storage closet. Hello? Hellooooo?"

Chell, unsurprisngly, was silent.

"Lady? Laaaaady? This isn't a very good idea you know. Locking me in the storage closet. Assuming it was you of course... couldn't have really been anyone else unless we've been burgled or something."

Still no reply.

"Alright, this is just, _ridiculous_. Just because I don't... like you... in that way, doesn't mean you have to- to shut me in some room for eternity... If that is in fact your plan... if it wasn't, then just pretend I didn't say anything, because I don't really want to give you any ideas while you are no doubt _very_ angry from last night, uuh..."

Locking him in there forever? Hmmm. No. She wasn't _that_ harsh.

"...Lady?"

That's it. She flung open the door, little Wheatley sat there, his optic contracted sharply as he adjusted to the light.

"My name is Chell!" She yelled as loud as she could at the sphere. Before Wheatley could reply, she ran off into the garage.

The garage door slid upwards, and she crawled out into the grass.

Slowly, she rose up, and started to walk forward, thoughts she was sick of. _Him_, she was sick of. She needed to get away. Far away.

The town was roughly an hour's walk away, so she started walking there.

She passed old haunts of hers. Mostly old fields. There was the field with the cow, strange little thing wasn't branded and had lived there as long as she had.

Rotten, abandoned barns and little shelters and sheds were numerous, some of them were homes to the unemployed, she heard once that a club for homeless people existed around here, at night they'd come and share stories or exchange sticks and beard dirt.

Despite the fact that she was constantly fighting back tears, Chell felt a bit more relaxed. It was another warm yet cloudy day, no rain this time. A pleasent time for walking.

Slowly but surely, the town appeared on the edge of the sky. In appearance, the buildings weren't tall enough for it to look like a city, but weren't small enough for it to be a village either. It was quite a large town, all things considered, but still too small to be anything like a city.

Being the middle of the day, there were a fair amount of people on the streets going about their daily business. Chell would travel to the shops to replenish her food supply when necessary, but wouldn't spend longer than she needed to in the town so she decided that today she'd have some time to herself and explore the urban environment.

Stores that weren't selling necessaties were limited, people around here were mostly focused on buying food for their families rather than wasting it on petty trinkets and pretty clothes. If it wasn't a food shop, it was probably a second hand store. Those, Chell found, sold pre-war furniture and electronics more than anything else.

Besides stores, there were some restaurants, a movie theatre which would show old films, a library, and a fair amount of bars. That was all the town really had to offer, but it was more than most people had.

She spent a good while roaming the town, but hadn't brought any money. Getting angry at your spherical robot roommate and storming off could sometimes cause people to do forget things like that. The only thing here she could enjoy that didn't require cash was the library...

Chell entered the shabby brown building, it wasn't a very big place, in fact it was spectacularly small for a library. The rooms were small and cramped, stuffed with as many books as possible without causing the floorboards to cave in on themselves. There were a couple of other people in the library, there was, of course, some librarians, and a few older citizens browsing the books.

She scanned the section headings. Well, the room was organised so that fictional books were stored on one side, and non-fiction resided on the other. The non-fiction books, she checked first.

_Biographies, Gardening, Cooking, Wildlife & Nature, Science, Mechanics_... Mechanics? Those books were on the bottom shelves, below the Science section. Her eyes skimmed along the book spines. They were mostly car manuals, but she pulled out a few books about a subject she had been particularly interested in for a few years- Robotics.

_Robotics for Dummies_ was the first she noticed. She plucked it from the shelf and looked through the chapter headings on the contents page. A little too basic, by the sounds of it.

She sat on the floor, to better see the books so low down. _Maths and Machines, Theories of Artificial Intelligence_. That one sounded interesting, but flicking through it she realised it was mostly equations. She was smart, but frankly she hadn't had the oppertunity to go to university or take any sort of education necessary to understand the book while trapped in Aperture.

The last one the caught her eye was a rather short book, no longer than 100 pages. _The Code of Love, Building Amiable Machines for Domestic use_. The book was written with the layman in mind, it was about giving robots fake emotions and how it could improve the way they worked in a domestic environment.

Chell sighed.

It seemed, looking at the blurb anyway, that the author didn't predict the affect emotional machines could have on humans if they happened to fall in love...

She slid the books back into their original slots, and left the tiny library.

She stood outside the creaking old building, holding her arms.

_Do you think that I love you? Well that's not likely is it?_

She always thought that he had something for her. That must have been her own feelings, covering her logic with optimism.

Chell roamed the town until the evening began to set in. She didn't want to go home. She wasn't ready to see Wheatley again. Could she somehow stay in the town? Not unless she wanted to sleep on the street.

Gingerly, she found a bar that didn't look like a complete pit, and went inside. It was still a bit early, there weren't many people in the bar and it was quiet, no chattering. It seemed to be quite a nice bar, the walls had wooden collums carved into them, fine polished wood in fact. The seats appeared to be made from real leather, dyed a sort of dark red, and the bar itself had a black, reflective surface. Behind the bar was a woman, not much younger than Chell, a blonde lady with a straight, serious face. She was washing out pint glasses.

The barmaid acknowledged Chell, but didn't greet her. The other patrons didn't look at her, preferring to stare glumly into their drinks.

Chell reached into her pockets, searching for any money she might have stashed away. She was in luck, she had about $5 worth of change, no doubt left over from her last escapade into town. She was thankful that the money hadn't fallen out of the pockets while her clothes were being washed.

She didn't recall the taste of alcohol. She hadn't bothered to drink any after leaving Aperture, and her memories of life before then were few and far between.

She approached the bar, and bought the best thing she could with the money she had.

Perhaps then, they'd let her stay here for a portion of the night.


	6. Chapter 6

It was early when she came home. Wandering around in the dark through the countryside, trying to find her way home while a little bit tipsy would have been a problem for most people, but Chell was a problem solver.

At 5 am she walked into the lounge, stumbling a little as she went. Whatever it was that they gave her, it was pretty strong for one bottle.

She looked around the room. The half-tiled kitchen looked just as small and pathetic as ever. The table with the wooden chair, which she referred to as the dining area was still shabby and old fashioned. And the lounge, which consisted of a bit of carpet, a companion cube, and a couch, seemed just as deplorable.

The storage room... she walked over to it, half hoping that Wheatley was still there and safe, half hoping that he had somehow been crushed. Before she got to the room, she heard him speak.

"I-is that you? Did you come back?" He sounded a little bit nervous. She approached the little dark room.

Wheatley had rolled off the boxes and onto the floor just outside the storage closet. Poor, immobile little guy. Her face softened. She wasn't angry anymore, or maybe the alcohol had just pacified her a little.

His cracked optic pointed down at the floor, as though he was fearful of meeting her gaze.

"Listen, while you were out, I was thinking... well, about you, actually. And I know that I say it a lot, but," she kneeled down and put her hand on his handlebar.

"I'm sorry love." Daringly, he looked into her eyes. He was about to speak, when his smell receptors kicked in. "H-have you been drinking?! Because I can smell alcohol on you," she put her hand flat, and tilted it from side to side. Ignoring her motion and assuming the worst, he began to panic.

"I didn't make you into an alcoholic did I? I'm sorry! I'm so sorry I didn't want to make you upset, I'm just a..." he looked sadly at the ground, "I'm just an idiot, don't listen to anything I say... except that, you should listen to what I said about not listening to what I say. Just clearing that up."

She smiled at him, a little tear dribbled out of her eye.

"Don't cry because of me, you've been doing that too much. You might keel over due to lack of water or something because I'm such a big moron!"

Crying and laughing, she sat down properly and sat him in her lap. He looked away from her again, his upper shutter descended. He was ashamed, or upset about something.

"I umm..." he paused, Chell convinced herself that stroking his handle would NOT be inappropriate. Then again, she wasn't all there right now.

"I know that my little... overreaction the other night was _quite_ angry and vicious. But uh, it wasn't..." His eye returned to hers. "I was lying..." her eyes widened a little.

"Well, not completely. I didn't think that I, uh... ha-ha, 'liked' you because, I didn't think that cores could fall in love with humans...didn't sound like something we were programmed to do..."

Chell listened intently with as much shock as she had experienced the other night, the atmosphere full of tension.

"A-and when you said that you were in _love_ with me, I was angry, because I didn't think I had the capacity to love you back. Literally, not sure how much memory the 'love' execution would take up, so I, being the greatest decision maker ever, decided that I'd have to make you un-love me."

Poor ball. He was a well of never-ending apologies and bad decisions. That's what happens when you're programmed to make mistakes.

"And that didn't go quite as planned, like anything I do. When you ran off I... I didn't..." she stroked the outer shell around his eye. "I thought you weren't going to come back." he whispered. His black aperture invisible, displaying his beautiful blue eye in its entirety.

"And, that made me start to think about me and you and the silly adventures we get up to... and I, well, I missed you..." Chell thought back to his little rant, one thing he seemed very sincere about was how her love for him would affect their friendship, how it'd make it awkward for them both. She thought, maybe, he felt awkward because he himself was hiding feelings for her without realising what it was. Just like she had for the past few years.

He gazed at her face, his inner mechanisms felt like they were heating up. He had missed her so much, and she'd only been gone a day. That was sort of... _silly_, to him. Or no, maybe it meant something else... he just wanted her to be happy when he was with her and be with her all the time.

suddenly, Wheatley's pupil became tiny, and he stared right up at Chell, like he was trying to see into her soul.

"I-I think I _am_ in love with you!" he sounded overjoyed and unbelieving at the same time. "I just didn't realise until you left! Argggggh, fantastic! We don't have to shout at each other anymore!" he laughed ecstatically, Chell giggled along with him. "I love you, Chell!" he reverted back to his iconic smile and twirled in his casing. She threw her arms around him and held him close to her body.

"I love you too, Wheatley" she smiled at him and nuzzled his hull with her nose. She let herself topple over onto the floor with him in her arms and he simulated a sigh as best a robot with a sound card for lungs could.

It wasn't the sort of hug most people were familiar with, but to her it was just as warm and loving.

* * *

The afternoon sun shone down through the narrow, horizontal windows of the warehouse. Chell awoke to find that she had fallen asleep holding the metal intelligence dampening sphere to her chest, lying on the uncomfortable grey carpet.

She rolled onto her side, keeping her love in her arms and resting her chin on his frontal plate. Wheatley didn't open his shutters, but spoke to her.

"Guess what?" he whispered. She shrugged and laughed silently into his shell. "I'm in love with someone!" she smiled and held him tighter. "Who are you in love with?" she asked, playfully.

"Well, she's a _fantastic_ jumper, for one thing, best jumper I've ever seen," he opened his shutters and smiled up at her face, "and she's got gorgeous grey eyes, like, ummm," he looked around for inspiration, "Ssssssseagulls. No, that's not very romantic at all. And they're sort of white not really grey..." He looked at her apologetically "I'm not very good at this romance thing am I?" he said, laughing nervously, She smiled back at him and puckered her lips. She pressed them against his shell.

"You're perfect at it." she said, scratching his handlebar with her index finger.

He felt his innards melt when she kissed him. "Chell, am I... is something making my circuitry melt? Just stick a torch in me and check, because I feel like I'm burning up inside." he laughed, she kissed him again. "S-stop doing that, I'm going to overheat" he started to giggle like a little child.

It had been a very emotionally bizarre couple of days, but for all the hurt in the world, this moment was worth it.

When she caressed his metal plates, his mind turned to mush and he fell silent. The only thing he could think to say was I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you... but he didn't want to get her fed up with him already.

Just once would be fine though. Once a day. No, once every half day. Once an hour? He wanted to say it all the time...

Eye closed, enjoying her gentle touch, he spoke softly.

"_I love you_,"

"_Don't ever leave again, not unless I'm going with you_,"

She felt tears trickle down her face. Their origin, she wasn't sure of. Maybe it was just the sincerity behind his words. He wanted to be with her always. Maybe she was just happy that it all worked out in the end.

It was probably a bit of both.

She got up and carried Wheatley to the couch, but before getting there she heard something knocking against the corrugated metal of the garage door. She put Wheatley down on the couch and headed for the door.

Chell pushed the door upwards, greeting the man responsible for interrupting her time with Wheatley. It was her client, he was here for the car. She showed him into the garage, the little Ford Mondeo, covered in questionable green stains and grass blades, was waiting for him. He gave her a challenging glance, she shrugged, trying not to grin at the memory of her outing in the vehicle, then he paid her and drove away.

She walked back into the lounge and waved the wad of money at Wheatley, grinning. He smiled back at her.

"Well, hello Miss Rich. Planning on doing anything in particular with all that?" she thought, then nodded. She sat next to him and put the money on his head.

"Movie?" she said, "Brilliant." he replied.

_The End_


	7. Author's Thanks

Hello! Thanks for reading my first published fanfic, I don't usually write fics so I apologise if some of it was a bit dumb. I'm more of a fan artist than a writer.

Also, sorry that the last two chapters were a bit rubbish. I hope you liked them anyway! Let me know if you think I should write more stuff like this, I'm interested to see how many of you want more of these stories.

Reviewers, I love you all! Thanks for commenting!

Core!Wheatley x Chell for all eternity, because there is a _sad_ amount of it in the world.

- Anonagram.


End file.
